Some vehicles (e.g., certain rail vehicles) may be configured for automatic brake actuation upon the occurrence of designated conditions. For example, a vehicle may include an automatic control system that is configured to automatically control actuation of the vehicle's brakes when a designated signal is received from off-board the vehicle, when the vehicle exceeds a designated speed limit, when a designated on-board systems fails or other otherwise unable to function within designated parameters, etc. However, if an intermediate component of the vehicle (component between the automatic control system and the braking mechanism) fails, it may be the case that the vehicle brakes are not actuated even when they should. This may lead to potentially unsafe operating conditions, such as violating a traffic signal.
For example, some currently known automatic control systems communicate a single control signal to a computer controlled braking unit via a processing module. This presents a potential single-point failure that can prevent the computer controlled braking unit receiving the signal to apply brakes when requested by the automatic control system. For example, if the processing module fails, the braking unit may never be activated even when the automatic control system issues the control signal to cause activation of the braking unit.
A need exists for a vehicle braking control system that differs from systems currently available.